NS

Near the eastern boundary of that level region of northern Egypt, known
as the Delta, once thridded by seven branches of the sea-hunting Nile,
Rameses II, in the fourteenth century B. C., erected the city of Pithom
and stored his treasure therein. His riches overtaxed its coffers and
he builded Pa-Ramesu, in part, to hold the overflow. But he died
before the work was completed by half, and his fourteenth son and
successor, Meneptah, took it up and pushed it with the nomad
bond-people that dwelt in the Delta.

The city was laid out near the center of Goshen, a long strip of
fertile country given over to the Israelites since the days of the
Hyksos king, Apepa, near the year 1800 B. C.

Morning in the land of the Hebrew dawned over level fields, green with
unripe wheat and meadow grass. Wherever the soil was better for
grazing great flocks of sheep moved in compact clouds, with a lank dog
and an ancient shepherd following them.

The low, shapeless tents and thatched hovels of the Israelites stood in
the center of gardens of lentils, garlic and lettuce, securely hedged
against the inroads of hares and roving cattle. Close to these were
compounds for the flocks and brush inclosures for geese, and cotes for
the pigeons used in sacrifice. Here dwelt the aged in trusteeship over
the land, while the young and sturdy builded Pa-Ramesu.

Sunrise on the uncompleted city tipped the raw lines of her half-built
walls with broken fire and gilded the gear of gigantic hoisting cranes.
Scaffolding, clinging to bald facades, seemed frail and cobwebby at
great height, and slabs of stone, drawn and held by cables near the
summit of chutes, looked like dice on the giddy slide.

Below in the still shadowy passages and interiors, speckled with fallen
mortar, lay chains, rubble of brick and chipped stone; splinters,
flinders and odd ends of timber; scraps of metal, broken implements and
the what-not that litters the path of construction. Without, in the
avenues, vaguely outlined by the slowly rising structures on either
side, were low-riding, long, heavy, dwarf-wheeled vehicles and sledges
to which men, not beasts, had been harnessed. Here, also, were great
cords of new brick and avalanches of glazed tile where disaster had
overtaken orderly stacks of this multi-tinted material. In the open
spaces were covered heaps of sand, and tons of lime, in sacks; layers
of paint and hogsheads of tar; ingots of copper and pigs of bronze.